Olsen’s early adult life was devoted to political activism and to rearing a family. Her first novel, begun at the age of 19, was set aside for 35 years. Though she never finished it, Olsen eventually published the reconstructed manuscript as Yonnondio: From the Thirties in 1974. It tells the story of the Holbrook family, who struggle to survive the Great Depression, working as coal miners, tenant farmers, and meat packers, and who finally give in to despair. Olsen’s best-known work is Tell Me a Riddle: A Collection (1961), a volume of three short stories and a novella, each a masterpiece in its own right. “Tell Me a Riddle” is the story of a quarreling old Jewish couple who, while the wife is dying of cancer, remember their youth of political activism, their disappointments in marriage, and the various compromises they have been forced to make in their lives. The protagonist in “I Stand Here Ironing” is a mother who realizes that, because of the deadening effects of poverty, her 19-year-old daughter will never be able to develop fully as a human being. Olsen used rhythmic, metaphoric language to give a voice to otherwise inarticulate characters; her stories capture the tragedy of their lives with poignant clarity.

In her later works she addressed feminist themes and concerns, especially as related to women writers. Silences (1978) contains, among other things, a long essay about the author Rebecca Harding Davis, whose career as a writer failed after she married. In 1984 Olsen edited Mother to Daughter, Daughter to Mother: Mothers on Mothering.